Geeking out about movies and comics for over 20 years.

Some thoughts on the new “A Nightmare on Elm Street” remake…

So this weekend, New Line Cinemas released the teaser trailer to the remake( or “reimagining”…ugh) of “A Nightmare on Elm Street”.

Check it…

Some of the things I dig about it.

1. The opening of the trailer is my favorite part of the whole thing. I like that they’re hinting at the idea of playing Freddy Kreuger a little more sympathetic. The way that Jackie Earl Haley delivers the line “What do you think I did, I didn’t do anything!” was fantastic. Seeing Clancy Brown (who’s always bad ass in any film, Highlander, Starship Troopers etc.) makes me smile since he brings a great menace to the it. The opening also hints at the idea of maybe the parents feeling guilty about their choice.

2. Theres some nice visuals in it.

3. Jackie Earl Haley is my main interest in this, and after seeing him in Little Children and Watchmen, I am really excited to see how he’s going to do this. He’s a good actor and he just seems to be perfect in the role.

But, theres a problem. Looking at the trailer one of things I did notice is that, this looks to be the exact same movie as the original. Almost beat for beat, shot for shot.

I know, I know, it’s a remake, but hear me out on this. When Friday the 13th came out last year, it had a neat idea. Instead of a straightforward remake, it did some cleaning up, retooling and played with the old movies.

What the Friday the 13th remake did was combine elements of the first four Friday the 13th movies and reworked the mythology, and I had fun seeing how they did that.

So looking at the Nightmare remake, I see a missed opportunity. There are so many places to go, and as I wrote earlier, it could still go there, but I’m sensing that after the opening scenes it will just be like the original movie.

The Nightmare franchise has always been a cool series of movies. Here, imagination kills, dreams kill…you could do anything here.

Could you imagine a Gullermo Del Toro type directing a Nightmare movie? A filmmaker using his imagination to his full horror extent?

All I’m saying, with a concept like Nightmare, you could try thinking out of the box.

Example? Ok try this…

Ok, the acting is pretty much crap, but look, the guy was thinking of new ways to freshen up Freddy Krueger. I kinda dug the idea of a Freddy Krueger walking around with flames. It was a neat take, it was different.

Well, who knows. I haven’t seen the remake yet, and it could be surprising. Why don’t we all find out next year then.